


to make a man

by liminal



Series: a man of flesh and blood [1]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 07:04:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liminal/pseuds/liminal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Can you make a person- pounding heart and discrete experiences and favourite words- seem real from only the facets and shards of someone else's recollection? <i>If you've never met him,</i> she supposes, <i>then perhaps. </i></p><p>George is an inquisitive little boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to make a man

September is a solemn month in the Big House and never more solemn than on the 8th, when cake and presents are necessary but feel wholly inappropriate. There's supposed to be a picnic today, the late September sunshine permitting al fresco dining, but Mary hasn't emerged from her bedroom yet and the guest of honour is nowhere to be found.

Carson, knees creaking and back aching, finds George in the attic, where the cobwebs are settling on his best summer clothes. He's sat down on his knees, never mind the scuff marks on his shoes, and to Carson, the open trunk in front of him is a gateway to a happier time.

"There you are, Master George," he wheezes benevolently and though it pains his joints, he bends down to be closer to the fair head. "Come now, everyone's been looking for you."

George, as he is wont to do, turns his head to acknowledge Carson's presence but he won't be distracted. "I know," he says softly and delves into the depths of the trunk. His hands, when they emerge, support the red jacket as though it were pure gold, as if it were made from crepe.

"You oughtn't to be up here, Master George. I'm not sure your mama would-"

George, gently and confusedly, cuts the old butler off mid-sentence. "Carson, what's this?" He lays it on his lap and strokes the material, plays with the lapels and insignia.

The old man isn't sure where to start, what to tell this little boy about the strangest four years of his life, and Carson has seen many decades come and go; what to tell this little boy about the soldiers and the injuries and the guns and the pale faces; what to tell him about the brave man he never knew to call 'papa'.

"That was part of your father's mess uniform," he decides on, "which he would wear for important occasions and dinners." Carson, though his own perspective is second-hand, borne from watching Lady Mary gaze at the world around her, remembers all too well the dinners with Mr Crawley in that very jacket; the inspection where it stood out so vividly against the sterile whites and blues.

"So he didn't fight in it," George asks, his gaze still transfixed by the garment and for Carson it's strange to see this doppelgänger golden-haired Crawley inspect the jacket, a mere ten years after the original did the same. "Uncle Tom told me he fought in France."

Carson, whose disapprobation where Mr Branson is concerned has long since vanished, nevertheless riles at the notion that this boy's childhood is being cut short by tales of loss and endeavour. "No, he didn't," he says quite simply and although both can hear the enquiring voices float up from the entrance hall, neither makes to move away from the trunk.

George is quiet as he undoes the buttons on the front of the jacket, runs his fingers along the inside collar. To Carson's astonishment, he raises his hand to his face and sniffs delicately, then does the same with the jacket itself. "Everyone smells different," he says by way of blushing explanation. "Aunt Edith smells like lavender and Granny Isobel smells like peppermint. I don't know what he smelled like. I thought his jacket might still smell of him but it doesn't." His tone is not one of sadness, but puzzlement, as though it were perfectly logical to assume that a jacket worn a decade ago by an elusive phantom of a father might hold some lingering scent to make him tangible, to make him a man of substance to this rational little boy.

And Carson finds he has no response so he stands there, hunched over a bereaved child, until George returns the jacket, shuts the trunk and answers the calls from downstairs. 

***

When George comes knocking on his door a week later, standing prim and proper and asking if the butler might have a box that he could use ("A fairly large one, please. One that can hold a lot of things."), Carson promises to find one and spends the next few days searching high and low for the requested object. He says nothing to anyone about it, doesn't even trust Mrs Hughes with the task, and eventually locates a travelling case, a small one part of a set no longer in use. George finds it at the foot of his bed one night, a perfect little container, and hides it before Sybbie or Mama can ask questions.

He finds Tom in the garage, dressed in work clothes and standing over the bonnet of the car. "Hullo," he starts and finds he isn't sure how to continue, or how to say what he wants to say.

Tom wheels round, spanner in one hand and an abashed look on his face before a grin breaks out. "George," he sighs and his shoulders relax. "I thought you might have been your Grandfather." 

"Doesn't Grandfather like you helping with the cars," George asks, looking the spitting image of his father in blue and white and red. Not that Tom tells him that.

"I think he'd rather I left them alone," he admits but goes no further because it's impossible to explain the odd relationship he has with Robert to this perceptive child. "Were you looking for me?"

George is restless suddenly, a trait Tom knows all too well as he plays with his fingers and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "What did my father smell like?" The words come out in a rush and his gaze is fixed solidly on the dusty ground.

It's not an issue Tom's ever considered before. Matthew smelled like… Matthew, which is an answer only an Irishman would appreciate. In Crawley House, the night before the wedding that almost never was, they had sat in armchairs and shared too much whisky together, so he'd smelled vaguely of that. He'd been all too able to smell the fear coming off the other man when they'd stood on the threshold to Lady Mary's bedroom, but fear was not a scent to be stoppered and would mean nothing to a sheltered eight-year-old. Towards the end, he'd smelled vaguely like motor oil because he had loved that damned machine.

"I don't know, George," Tom admit and he's genuinely flummoxed, but he sees the little boy's shoulders drop and strives for an answer. "He- he smelled like the house in a way. Not musty or anything like that, but he belonged in the house and the house belonged to him. Like the books in your Grandfather's library and the grass down by the folly and-"

He breaks off as George's face splits into an enlightened grin before he rushes off like an eight year old should. Tom's left standing by the car, wondering what he said and with a strange sense of deja vu. He's only just turned around again, humming to himself and dearly hoping he's fixed the radiator this time when another voice interrupts.

"Tom? What on earth are you doing in the garage?" Robert's voice echoes across the courtyard and Tom grins.

***

It's always been the two of them and so George hates not telling Sybbie what he's doing, but he's convinced that she wouldn't understand. After all, she didn't know his father anymore than he did, couldn't tell him what his father smelled like, but he feels guilty all the same when he shrugs her off and runs into the deserted library.

Somewhere in the back of his young mind, he knows that what he wants to do is worse than putting frogspawn in Nanny's tea, but he's also convinced that he has no other option. Grandfather's log book is a precious thing, resting on the pedestal high above even his tall head but all it takes is a furtive look around and a footstool pushed up against the stand for George to be able to look inside. He flicks back through the years, eyes trained to look for the one name that matters, to flick between the cursive handwriting and the door. It takes longer than he expected, though he also supposes that grown-ups must read whole books more quickly than he does, but he finds it just when he feared having to find an older copy of the log.

_Matthew. 29 Aug '20. Dickens- A Tale of Two Cities._

George waits for the lump to rise in his throat or the butterflies to swarm in his stomach at the sight of the neatly written words, but he waits in vain. There's no euphoric (Granny Violet decided last week that he ought to start using more sophisticated words, and 'euphoric' is her current favourite) moment of connection between past and present, so he hops down lightly and drags the footstool to 'D'. Shelves stretch far above his inquisitive head but the book he wants is just about reachable. In his hands, it's a dear little thing, small and dark brown and unremarkable in every sense except the one that this was the last book that Matthew Reginald Crawley ever read, and is therefore the most important book in the world to his son.

He assumes that no one will miss the book but he wants to make his mark, so he adds his name in his neatest cursive underneath his father's. His mouth hangs open and his tongue pokes out as he concentrates, and he's rather heavy handed with the fountain pen, but nevertheless it's done.

_George. 8 Sept '29. Dickens- A Tale of Two Cities._

A quick peek around the corner tells him the entrance hall is all but deserted, and George sprints upstairs and into his bedroom. He opens the book and smells it before secreting it away; Uncle Tom's right, it does smell like the house, and George imagines that it might smell like a man, too.

***

Granny Isobel, sitting in the parlour in Crawley House with a china cup of tea held in one hand, is just as surprised as Uncle Tom was by the question.

"What did Matthew smell like," she repeats and Molesley chooses that moment to make himself scarce.

George shrinks back into his chair and nibbles on his biscuit quietly, though he'd have preferred a slice of cake. He thinks it must be nice living here, in a quiet little place with a little garden, though he can't imagine Mama being happy here.

"I- I'm not sure, he just smelled like… himself, really," Granny replies and George wishes he'd never asked. This is a problem not even Mrs Bird's biscuits can solve.

"Cake, when he was younger," Granny says suddenly and she chuckles. "He was always in the kitchen when Mrs Bird was baking. He used to come in and he'd smell of whatever it was she'd made. It used to make his father laugh."

The clock on the mantelpiece tells him that Mama will be here soon, so he hides a few more biscuits in his pockets. "What was his favourite type of cake," he asks as he brushes the crumbs off his trousers. Granny Violet doesn't like it when he does that but Granny Isobel smiles.

"Victoria Sponge," she says and when Mama asks what they talked about, she seems to know it's a secret and her eyes twinkle as she mentions cricket and his birthday picnic.

He has to wait to add the biscuits to the trunk that night but the Victoria Sponge keeps him thinking until late. It's a dilemma he solves by tip-toeing to the table and finding his pencils as quietly as he can. The drawing isn't very good, but it looks a little like the cake Mrs Patmore sends up for dessert sometimes and once he's coloured it all in between the lines, it joins the biscuits and the book in the bottom of the trunk.

***

It takes him a while to ask Mama, but no one else seems right. He sneaks into her bedroom one night while she's dressing for dinner, but he waits in the doorway while she adds a necklace before twice exchanging it for another one. She picks out a locket in the end, and George thinks that if he were going to give her a necklace, it's the sort of thing he would buy.

He clears his throat and Mary swivels away from her vanity, fixes a smile on her face. "Darling," she smiles, but he's wearing blue again and she has to remind herself which Crawley boy she's looking at.

George takes a deep breath- and stops himself. "Hullo, Mama," he says pleasantly. Mary opens her arms and he walks over to give her a perfunctory hug, careful not to crease her dress. 

"What's wrong?" Nothing escapes Mama, but asking her is harder than it was asking Uncle Tom or taking the book or asking Granny Isobel. He hesitates and her look grows concerned, but the silence between them is one both are accustomed to.

"Whatdidmyfathersmelllike," he asks and he can't bear to look at her, so he looks at the necklace and holds it between two delicate fingers.

She understands him, though, and Mary, for one of the few times in her life, is lost for words. How can she possibly separate a man into his parts and make her son understand them as a whole? Can you make a person- pounding heart and discrete experiences and favourite words- seem real from only the facets and shards of someone else's recollection? _If you've never met him,_ she supposes, _then perhaps._

To hell with creases, she thinks, and surprises both of them by pulling George on to her lap. He's so big now, so grown up but so innocent, and it's a quality she hopes he never loses.

"He smelled warm and-"

"Heat isn't a scent," George interrupts and Mary smiles.

"No, but it makes someone smell and feel right. He smelled like the soap he used, a bar he brought with him from Manchester that first time and insisted on using years after. When he came home from the War, he smelled like gunpowder for so long, I thought he'd always smell like that. He liked Earl Grey tea in the morning, so he'd smell of that until elevenses. He liked walking, so he'd smell of fresh air. And he smelled like his cologne." Mary's hand drifts towards the top drawer of her vanity, but she stops herself from opening it. It's selfish, she knows, to want to keep the bottle, but she doesn't have much left of Matthew. She looks at her son's face- really looks at him, the biggest piece of Matthew she'll ever have- and decides that his need is greater than her own. 

She holds the bottle for one last time before pressing it into George's little hand, and his fingers close around it as though it were worth its weight in gold. To both of them, it is.

"I can't remember who made it, it might be a Caron or a Penhaligon's, but sometimes, when I need to be reminded of him, I take it out and smell it, and everything feels all right." Her voice has fallen to a whisper, mournful and happy in equal turns, and her eyes are bright with tears that are yet to fall.

"But I can have it," George whispers, turning the bottle round in his hands, and Mary sees the joy enthused over his face.

"Of course," she promises and it makes sense, after all. Matthew's son with Matthew's cologne, and she laughs when he sprays some on himself and droplets land on her neck and wrist. She'll go downstairs smelling of him, as she once did, and tonight will be a good night.

They both hear the enquiring voices downstairs, but they don't move for a moment because this is the closest they've ever been. Eventually, Edith traipses upstairs to fetch her sister, but George pulls on Mary's hand as she's about to go down.

"Tomorrow," he whispers into her ear, "I want you to tell me everything about him." He grins wickedly and runs off to his bedroom to lock the bottle away safely. Mary laughs a lot at dinner that night, and no one asks about the perfume she's wearing.


End file.
